Market Square Redevelopment

The City of Stratford is excited to announce that Stratford City Council has selected Ro-buck Contracting to carry out the redevelopment construction work for Market Square at a cost of $2,505,723.50. Construction will start on 12 December 2016 and is expected to be complete by late June 2017 in time for our Sesquicentennial celebrations.

Market Square will be redeveloped according to the following design plan by GSP Group:

After pre-qualifying four firms to bid on the construction work, staff issued Tender T16-13 which closed on 12 October. Three bids were received and were substantially higher than expected. The additional expense was a result of a short construction timeline that extended through the winter, limited product sourcing, and an expanded project scope that now meant this revitalization project would be complete in a single construction phase with added provisional items such as pedestrian cross walks and traffic bump-outs, as well as revitalization at the front of City Hall.

Consequently, City staff worked with GSP Group to revise the drawings and specifications and expand supply choice while maintaining the same quality and design. The revised construction tender was then re-issued to the prequalified firms with the same look and feel but with value engineering to reduce costs. Bids were received on 14 November and were substantially lower than the original October closing. Staff presented these bids to Council on 14 November with the option to remove provisional items from the design (such as the bump-outs, cross walks, some electrical work, and concrete plinths). Council elected to retain the provisional items and complete the revitalization of Market Square in one phase for an estimated cost of $2,505,723.50.

Construction will begin on 12 December 2016, which will allow the existing Square to be used for the Hometown Hockey event from 8 to 11 December 2016. Furthermore, full access to store fronts will be maintained during the holiday shopping season.

This highly anticipated community renewal project has been many years in the making. The revitalized Market Square will be an open community space for residents to gather and host special events, and will help draw additional business and tourism to our downtown core.

B) Previous Redevelopment Process

1. 2015 Public Engagement:

In 2015, the City of Stratford retained AtFocus Consulting to facilitate the Market Square visioning and community consultation process. This process included stakeholder interviews, workshops, focus groups, and a public survey for which we received 1060 responses. The feedback from this public consultation process resulted in the formulation of guiding principles and vision scenarios for Market Square that were presented to council on 19 May 2015. The reports are available here:

In late 2015, the City issued a request for Prequalification (RFPQ15-08*) to shortlist architectural design firms interested in designing the redevelopment of Market Square. We received 20 responses and invited 3 shortlisted firms to submit design proposals (RFP15-09*). Proposals were received on 17 February 2016. Design proposals are available here:

Since that time, GSP has refined the conceptual design in consultation with City Staff and community stakeholders. The revised conceptual design was presented at a public Open House on Wednesday 1 June 2016. It was presented to Council for consideration on 13 June 2016. The link to the revised conceptual design is here:

The City invited public feedback on the design and presented comments to GSP and Council. For more information on design items considered by Council, please see our 17 May report to the Finance and Labour Relations Subcommittee: The report is available here: